Out of My Cold, Dead Hands

In TBC I proudly carried my Khorium Destroyer, crafted for me as a gift from my lovely wife, Cheesi. It was the tank gun back then...kind of a rite of passage into the ranks of the meat shields.

When WotLK came around, I crafted myself an Armor Plated Combat Shotgun the second I hit 80. Great tank weapon when you start your heroicing.

That's a long stretch of time to be carrying nothing but a gun. Veneretio recommended a while back to pick up some thrown weapons for a trash set, but I never really got anything in TBC or early WotLK that I wouldn't be embarrassed carrying in a raid. Thrown weapons back then were pretty much built for rogues, so they were great for trash threat. Plus, throwing has a much shorter cast time than shooting (that was a big deal pre-Heroic Throw, but even now it's helpful to have a secondary option in the event that the pulls are happening quick and HT is on cooldown).

Not too terribly long ago, I coughed up some emblems for the Blades of the Sable Cross, the first really accessible replacement for an Engineering tanking gun in a very, very long time.

There was nothing wrong with the Blades. In fact, they were quite nice. It just felt weird to not have a gun. It was hard enough to take off my goggles, but losing my gun, too? I felt naked...couldn't walk through Tinkertown without getting dirty looks.

Last night during our ICC cleanup (didn't get Festergut, but made some progress on him), Stinky fell and Tatia said she/he/it dropped a BoE: Rowan's Rifle of Silver Bullets.

Thanks, Blizz, for making sure I don't have to bring knives to any more gunfights.

Recap

After last Wednesday's..."issues"...with ICC, we walked in on Saturday and one-shot all the content we had previously cleared. We then two-shot Saurfang.

The Turned Champion isn't really that bad of a fight when you get down to it. It just requires communication, especially when things don't go according to plan. If, for example, a Blood Beast starts gnawing on melee for some reason, don't panic...just say something to the ranged responsible for picking them up. There's not a ton of room for error, but you can get yourself out of a fix if you stay calm and just talk to each other.

We took a look at Festergut and are going to give him an honest effort tonight if we can manage the personnel. There was a lot of "do we have the dps for this?" talk, but I think we can do it. The mechanics on that fight aren't as complicated as some of the other ICC fights, so our dps crew should have enough room to work without that much distraction.

I also learned that I can't tank Heroic Halls of Reflection, specifically, the waves at the beginning. I gave it my best effort, but simply cannot pull it off. If the mobs all came from the same place, I could manage, but because they're coming in from all over the room it's a little too much for this poor, old, beat-up Warrior to handle. I also get a bit of lag sometimes when dealing with AoE, so when a rifleman drops a frost trap on top of whatever AoE the group is doing I end up with a couple seconds of a frozen screen only to return to find a dead healer.

I'm sure I could do it, but it would take some practice. The problem with practicing a unique set of pulls from a specific instance, though, is that four other people are paying for it, too...both with time and repair bills.

All in all, it was a good weekend in Azeroth. Got my Ashen Verdict ring and even managed to putz around with the holidays. I don't think I'm gonna get titles out of both of them, but I'll settle for some achievement points and vanity items. My banker is very happy with her new Lovely Red Dress, but keeps bugging me about the black one.

Hopefully we can take out Festergut tonight and cross another boss off of our progression list.

Well That Sucked

Went back into ICC last night for what was supposed to be a quick clear of a couple of bosses to set us up for some progression on Saturday.

It. Didn't. Work.

As far as issues beyond our control go, the overall server lag was horrible. I didn't really notice it on my end until BoneStooooooooorm. What with Marrowgar spinning around and coldflame all over the place I couldn't move effectively or pick up aggro quick enough when he stopped. It also hurt the tanks as we tried to stay locked together to split the Saber Lash both at the beginning of the fight and immediately after Bone Storm was over.

Beyond that, I personally didn't do very well. My positioning was crap as was my threat gen. For the life of me, I just couldn't get to my spot, get my body properly facing the boss, and get close enough to the other tank in time.

My solution? I think I need to run some random 5s and/or lower level raids. Not only will the emblems help me snag some upgrades, but I really need to knock off as much rust as possible to be effective again.

Saturday, I felt really strong. Last night, I didn't. It's gonna take some work to get back to the point where I can tank successfully on a consistent basis.

Enter the Tank

Hey. Remember me?

I've been logging on the past couple of weekends trying to get back in the swing of WoW. I missed it, frankly. I missed my guildies, I missed raiding, and I missed cursing every time I get aged yolk (if I don't get that proto-drake before Cataclysm, I'm heading over to the frickin' wolvar, I swear).

Saturday I pulled one of my marathon sessions. I was trying to squeeze in dailies while running after the Baby Tank and keeping the Puppy Tank from peeing in the house.

Saturday night was EoF's second evening in ICC 10. Tatia asked me if I wanted to go, but I didn't want to walk in there with mediocre gear and kill any momentum they had from the prior week when they managed to down three bosses. As the day progressed, though, I realized I really, really wanted to go with them.

So, I picked up the mats for a quick and easy upgrade and signed up. We had a Lock finishing another raid, so we decided to start clearing trash while we waited on him. Started pulling only to realize our other tank, a Pally, was having some technical difficulties. We initially thought it was just a dc, but as it turns out his whole computer went nuts and he was down for the evening.

Down to eight raiders, now, with a tank (that would be me) who's out of practice, undergeared, and trying to hold on to 200 The Damned (hyperbole intended) while all of our better-geared dps go nuts on them.

It worked. Don't worry, I was surprised, too.

We cleared to the first boss, had one of our crew bring in an alt tank, and filled the open slot. Had some difficulty with Marrowgar, but two shot Deathwhisper and the Gunship. Marrowgar was even nice enough to give me a mace as a "welcome back to raiding" gift. It got late, and we called it a night.

When I was raiding more regularly I generally overgeared the content we were attempting. This was the first time in a while I undergeared the content and, subsequently, had less of a margin for error. All in all, I think I did ok.

Might even sign up again for next week.

Advice for a Fresh 80

I get a lot of whispers from level 80 Warriors who are taking on tanking for the first time. The whispers come from both within my guild and from without, and the questions are usually pretty similar.

I've said a million times that there are a ton of sites that do a much better job than I ever could as far as Protection Warrior theorycrafting and number-crunching...I'm not even going to pretend to throw my hat in that ring.

What I can do, however, is hastily throw together a list of answers to the questions I usually get. I'm going to dumb this down, not because I believe my readers are dumb, but, on the contrary, because I'm an idiot who can't explain it in anything but a simple manner.

~*~

Here goes nothing:

What is the defense cap? For raids, it's 540. For heroics, it's 535. Why the difference? Because raid bosses are level 83 and heroic bosses are level 82.

Do I have to be at the defense cap to tank a heroic? The answer to that one, from a purely technical standpoint, is no. The defense cap is there to make sure that you don't get crit by a boss because boss crits hurt. If you take a couple of crits in a row, even in a heroic, your healers probably won't be able to keep up with the burst damage and you'll die. So no, you don't have to be at the cap to tank a heroic or a raid, but you should be.

I'm at 520 defense, and this upgrade has 40 additional defense on it, won't that put me at 560 and shouldn't I go for something that won't put me that far over the cap? I get this one a lot, and don't feel bad if you've asked it. The defense targets of 535 and 540 refer to defense skill. The defense number on items refers to defense rating. Every point of defense skill, at level 80, will give you roughly 1/4 a point of defense skill. It's not exactly 1/4, but if you're trying to calculate it on the fly, it's a good way to eyeball it. For the example above, you'll wind up at about 530 defense skill after the upgrade.

The higher your level, the less skill you get for each point of rating. Back at 70 when I was eyeballing upgrades the number was closer to .4 skill/rating, so I generally just cut the amount of rating in half and knocked off a point or two to guesstimate it.

Veneretio has some helpful calculators that will give you the exact numbers. There are also addons that can help you out by giving you the true increase/decrease in defense of an upgrade. Bottom line: if you're guesstimating on the fly, assume it's about 1/4.

What should my rotation be? It's not a rotation, it's a tiered priority system.

First of all, take Sunder Armor off of your Defensive Stance bar. Devastate does that and does damage/threat, ergo, it's better.

Also, please, for the sake of all that is good and sexy, take Rend off of your Defensive Stance bar. You want every point of rage you spend to generate threat, and from that standpoint Rend is a grotesque waste of perfectly good rage.

Here's the priority sytem, assuming a single target:

1. Shield Slam/Revenge/Devastate
2. Concussion Blow/Shockwave
3. Thunderclap/Demoralizing Shout

T-Clap and Demo Shout should be kept up, as both are exceptionally good debuffs that help keep you alive. Also, make sure your sunders (via Devastate), don't drop off. As far as buff shouts, coordinate with any other Warriors in the group to figure out your shout assignment (Commanding vs. Battle) and keep it up as well.

While you're doing all of this, you're going to be spamming Heroic Strike. By spamming, I mean seriously spamming...like emails offering you Canadian Viagra spamming. Keep it up all the friggin' time. Heroic Strike generates a good deal of threat, and it also serves the purpose of making sure that you're not wasting rage.

How does HS keep you from wasting rage? If you're at 100 rage points and the boss dings you for 8k, that's a ton of rage you could have used to keep pumping out threat. Heroic Strike is an expensive ability that offers a good threat return, which makes it great at dumping threat so every time you get smacked you end up with rage you can use.

~*~

Hopefully somebody got some use out of this wall of text. If you have questions, ask. I don't recommend asking in General or Trade chat because you'll probably not get anything constructive. Instead, ask a guildie if one is available. If there isn't, shoot me an email or, if you're on Bloodhoof (US) just whisper me. I'll be glad to help.

Happy Friday. Happy Tanking.

When DPS Goes Overboard

Let them.

At least if you know them.

DPSers should not pull aggro. That's part of their job...maximize sustained damage without generating enough threat to pull off the tank.

But that's not the point of this post.

We've gotten into something of a rhythm in EoF. Every non-raid night we run heroics, starting with the dailies and moving on to whatever we have time for. Due to scheduling, it's usually the same crew online every night. I usually log on, whisper Mill to see if she's done the dailies yet on Tatia, her healer, then pick up as many guild DPSers as we can because I. Hate. Pugs.

Last night Tatia, Vel, DPS Warrior extraordinaire Nessfactor and I ran UK, the daily heroic. We 4-manned it because nobody in the guild was available and there wasn't a promising alternative in LFG. We then picked up a Rogue who came with us to H-HoL and H-VH.

But that's not the point of this post, either.

Last night while we were running HoL and VH,  Ness and Vel were pulling aggro on pack pulls. In VH when a single mob came out of the portal, they started pewpewing before I could even lay a finger on it. I didn't have time for a Shield Slam, let alone a full rotation.

If this happened in a raid or a PuG group this would be a very different post. I'd be complaining about how people have gotten away from the basics and aren't letting tanks do their job, and that negligence led to wipe after wipe after wipe.

Last night, though, they didn't. Sure, we had a death here or there, but we never had a full-blown wipe.

Why? Familiarity. Vel and Ness know what I'm capable of as a tank. I know what they're capable of as DPSers. They know I'll do everything within my power to pull aggro back...at least I hope they trust me that much.

From my standpoint, it's a refreshing challenge. Having the opportunity to run a couple of easy heroics (UK and VH, specifically...HoL isn't all that bad, but certainly a different level than the other two) with a DPS crew who opened it up a bit forced me to stay on my game.

In a group situation, DPS has a ceiling that the tank defines. On the one hand, they need to be aware of that ceiling, but, on the other, the tank needs to make that ceiling as high as possible. Last night, they were setting the pace, not me. I still had to build the ceiling, but they decided to design the room.

I Taunted, Intervened, and burned Challenging Shout cooldowns more than a few times. I had to stay on top of my rotation and make sure that I was generating as much threat as I possibly could...even in situations where I wasn't working with a full rage bar. They didn't make it easy on me, and when we were done, I was worn out.

If you were never in a group that had trouble when it came to their threat levels, you'd never figure out how to efficiently use abilities like Taunt or Intervene. You'd never have to figure out how to pull aggro back when all of your emergency buttons are on cooldown. You'd never figure out how much threat you can really generate. You'd go along, happily tanking away, until something bad happens and you find out you're not prepared.

Being in a safe environment, like an easy heroic with guildies who know how hard they can push and get away with it, is the place to practice those skills. It's like a fire drill...learn the emergency procedure so that when it counts, you know what to do.

So what's the point of this post?

If you're running along with a group you know and they start generating more threat than they usually do, don't ask them to stop. Instead, take the challenge and push right back...pump out as much threat as you can and, if they pull aggro, be ready to save the day.

In the long run, it'll make you better at what you do, and, if you look at it the right way, it's kinda fun.

Specialist

I'm a career tank.

I've mentioned it in guild chat many times when chatting about tanking and tank alts and all of that.

Since my low 60s I've been a Prot Warrior. I have an Arms secondary spec that I bought with the best of intentions but have yet to really put to good use.

I quest in Defensive Stance. I PvP in Defensive Stance. I work the AH in Defensive Stance. I do the John Travolta Saturday Night Fever dance in Defensive Stance. I sleep in Defensive Stance.

I have no max-level alts. While other folks run around on their pewpew mains and grab their "Tank Alt" or "Healer Alt" to run an instance, I just bring me. What you see is what you get.

If the servers shut down tomorrow and we all moved over to the next big thing in MMOs, I'd pick me a tank class and keep running with it. It's what I do.

That's what makes me different than the majority of the WoW population. Most people level a flashy DPS main and then, as a backup plan, drag along a tank or healer alt. In some cases that tank or healer alt becomes their main by necessity, but they've always got their DPS character in their back pocket if needed.

Not me. I'm just Mis.

It's a curse and a blessing. The curse is that if somebody's tanking the instance already, I sure as heck can't go along as DPS and make much of a difference. I'll do moderately mediocre damage in my Arms spec and in Prot I'll be too rage-starved to do anything except auto-attack.

It's a blessing, however, because it makes me a specialist. I like to think that focusing so much time and energy on tanking has made me better at it. What some people with tank alts have to concentrate on remembering to do I can do without even thinking about it, which frees up my brain to handle the rest of what's going on: pull, get behind the mob(s), face them away from the party, cluster, move the camera so you can see if something's after somebody else, run the rotation, spam Heroic Strike, watch for Sword and Board, watch for Revenge, be ready to Taunt, be ready to Intervene, keep T-Clap and Demo Shout up, keep Commanding/Battle Shout up, be ready with a cooldown if the healer gets silenced, etc...

I'm not saying that someone with a tank alt can't be a good tank. On the contrary, I know plenty who are very, very good. I just know that my fellow career tanks (many of whom seem to be bloggers, incidentally) and I bring something unique and different to the table.

Tank LFW.

Embracing Off-Tanking

Back in my low 60s Cheesi and I were constantly running the early TBC five-mans. During this time, we happened upon a Druid about our level named Nitedragon. We pugged with him several times and developed a good relationship, and he was kind enough to give healing a go so that we would have an easier time putting groups together.

Soon thereafter, Nite joined our guild. He immediately became one of the most helpful, willing, committed guildies we had.

When we started the TBC raiding game, Nite, much like he did when we were running Ramps over and over, left his comfort zone to meet our needs. Our guild suddenly had healers, but the only tanks we had were me and about 25 Hunter pets.

Nite specced Feral and went off to do his homework. He figured out how to spec, how to gear, and worked very, very hard learning how to tank. When we hit Kara, we hit it hard, and Nite and I ran through that place side by side week after week after week. We jokingly referred to him as "Mis's pet bear."

With all the research and all the practice, Nite got good...very good. He bailed me out when I picked up adds, grabbed bosses if I died, executed perfect chain-pulling, and prevented many wipes with quick-thinking and flawless tanking.

Our first time in ZA, he and I nailed the tank-swap and one-shot Nalorakk without breaking a sweat. He once picked up Nightbane after I dropped and tanked him through to the kill.

Now, when we run Heroics together and he comes along in cat form, if I overpull there's instantly a very large, angry bear standing next to me picking up the adds. When we ran Naxx last weekend, he did a lot of great work snagging adds and protecting healers and let me focus on bosses...many of whom I had never seen before and most of whom we one-shot.

So why am I gushing about Nite?

Because the guy has turned off-tanking into an art form. It's not like a lot of runs I've been in, especially pugs, where the guy with the lower gear score automatically gets put on off-tank duty. Instead, Nite recognizes it as a distinct role...different from that of the main tank and equally, if not more, important.

While I'm locked in on a boss, Nite is often running around grabbing adds, protecting healers and overzealous DPS, and making sure that he's always ready to charge in and pick up the boss if I die. He constantly has a ton on his plate, but he makes it look easy and actually enjoys it.

What can you take from this?

If you're an off-tank in your guild, don't feel like you're less of a tank than the main tank. That doesn't have to be the case at all. Off-tanking is a different job than main tanking...if you approach it that way and take the opportunity to learn to do it well, you'll be helping out your raid group immensely.

If you come across a good off-tank, not just one who facerolls through the boss fight while thinking about what tank gear that boss drops, show him or her a little love. It takes a special kind of person to take on that much responsibility and not care about who's getting the glory.

Call It Like It Is

Sunday I picked up the heroic and regular daily quests, which both happened to be Utgarde Pinnacle. Didn't get to it on Sunday, but I held on to both because it would be easy to kill both birds with that one stone.

Ran it last night and, finally, got the Red Sword of Courage. At face value, it may not look like much of an upgrade compared to the Teldrassil Protector I've been using forever, but I rolled on it (even though we had a DK in the group with a tank spec...sorry, Landel) because (a) it's just a teeny bit faster, which I like in a tank weapon, (b) because it give me a little more stam and, most importantly, (c) because of the Human expertise racial.

I lose a little strength, defense, and parry, but I'm not really fretting over any of that because I'm probably going to grab the Gauntlets of the Royal Watch tonight which will upgrade my T7s. Parry still suffers, but I'm not terribly concerned.

Worked up my sword skill last night from 375 to 399 doing AT dailies and then tanked H-VH with it. I think, based on the results, that I made the right choice...even if I end up upgrading it sooner rather than later.

But that's not the point of this post.

The point of this post is the quest item that needs to be obtained for the Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle daily: the Locket of the Deceased Queen.

Cute.

They make it sound like she passed away peacefully in her sleep. Nice, gentle, PC approach to it.

If you quested through Howling Fjord, you "deceased" the queen in a violent fashion right in front of King Ymiron.

They should call it the Locket of the chick you killed in your low 70s for a couple gold and a soon-to-be-replaced quest reward.

Positioning

Or: Uncle Mis's Guide to the Kama Sutra

Too creepy? Let me pull it back.

I'm actually going to talk about something that everyone in a group with a Warrior tank should know.

It's a very simple, yet true, statement: Warriors are not AoE tanks.

We're better at tanking more than one mob than we used to be...much better, in fact. We've been given a wonderful gift in the form of Shockwave. Thunderclap now hits everything in its range as opposed to a fixed number of mobs. All of it has made a big difference and we desperately needed the changes that have been made.

However, we still only have one "true" AoE damage ability: Good ol' Thunderclap. End of list.

Thunderclap affects mobs all over the place...in front of us, to the side, behind us, etc. It's an AoE attack in it's purest, circular form. Demoralizing Shout is a fantastic AoE debuff that we should be using, but (a) it does no damage and (b) it creates very little threat.

Shockwave is a frontal cone ability, not a pure AoE ability. In order for Shockwave to be effective, the mobs have to be positioned properly in front of the Warrior. Beyond that, if the tank is tab or click-targeting the group and throwing around Devastates, Shield Slams, and Cleaves, anything not positioned in front of the Warrior will not be affected.

For Warriors, that means we have to move around to get the pack that we've pulled directly in front of us. If it's a "standard" pull (3 or 4 mobs in a group, you Heroic Throw, they come running), you can usually T-Clap, Demo Shout, take a step back, and they'll be in the perfect position for a Shockwave. If it's not a standard pull, however (think when the 3 or 4-packs split up in VH and run down different ramps, then start blinking behind you during the fight), you're going to need to be moving to get them in the right place. T-Clap will get their attention, but they won't stick to you long if a Lock or a Mage starts going apecrap with AoE DPS.

For the rest of the group, this means that you really need to be paying attention to where your tank is and where the mobs are. For melee DPS, you may have to do a little running around while the tank gets situated. For caster DPS, especially those who plan on AoEing everything in sight, be aware that if, for some reason, a mob is behind or to the side of your Warrior tank, you will probably pull that mob.

Frankly, most of the deaths I've seen in Heroics recently have been on trash mobs, not bosses. If I do a poor job of positioning or my group doesn't give me a chance to position before AoEing, the mobs will likely take off in any number of different directions and start smacking around clothies.

Bottom line: Warriors do not AoE tank. We can hold more than one mob, but to be truly effective at it we, and our group, need to be aware of where the mobs are positioned in relation to the tank.

All Dressed Up

With nothing to tank.

3.2's on the horizon, and as such, I have little to no motivation to do much of anything PvEish. When the patch drops I'll probably be wanting to hit some heroics, but right now it seems a little pointless.

That explains my recent PvP adventures. I log in, do some auctioning, maybe do the cooking and fishing dailies, try to run at least one WG, and hit some BGs to round out the night.

At the rate I'm going, my PvP set is gonna be more purple than my tank set pretty soon.

~*~

Anecdote:

Last night I was doing the "Go get the herb pouches from Horde players....or you can just kill the elementals and stock up on Crystallized Life which you have no other way of getting as an Engineer" quest along with the kill 10 Horde players quest and the other WG PvP dailies that you can accomplish without actually engaging in any PvP. The daily fishing quest was there, too, so I was able to get a chunk of gold and honor in one zone.

Efficiency - I likes it.

Anyhoo, I'm going to the Steppe of Life and stop on my way up the hill to say something in /gchat. All of a sudden, while my chat box is open, some Rogue decides it would be fun to try and stunlock me. I casually delete the text I had written and got rid of the chat box so I wouldn't end up entering "Hey guys I think it would be cool if 52432627252423" in /gchat.

He managed to knock my health down quite a bit, but I popped a pot and Enraged Regeneration and took care of him. Cheesi was watching over my shoulder and giving me some insight into what he might try as I fought him, so with a Rogue advisor on my side he didn't have a chance.

Got 5 of my herb pouches off of him. Life is good.

I encounter an Alliance Shaman on the Steppe who whispers me:

Shammy: There's a rogue hiding around here.

Me: Yeah, I just killed him.

Shammy: Nice.

I'm feeling good about myself, so I go about my business. I don't wanna spend all night on the Steppe, so I round up two elementals at a time: one of the smaller ones and one of the bigger ones.

When I'm on my second or third round of elementals I notice my rogue buddy saw an opportunity to take me out considering I was already in combat and at about 3/4 health. I didn't react fast enough, and he succeeded.

Me: Argh. He just killed me while I was in combat.

Shammy: He did that to me. They fight like that. Should've stayed. Sorry, man.

Me: Don't worry about it. All's fair in Love and Warcraft.

We won the WG that started about 20 minutes later. I made sure to pay special attention to any Undead Rogues I saw running around during the battle in the event that I encountered my new friend.

I hold nothing against the guy. Like I said to the Shaman, all's fair in Love and Warcraft.

In fact, if I could talk to him I'd probably thank him for making my night more interesting.

Prot PvP

Blizzard has, more or less, stated that Warriors, by design, fall into these roles based on their spec:

1. Protection = PvE Tanking
2. Fury = PvE DPS
3. Arms = PvP

So let it be written, so let it be done. The Powers that Be have spoken.

Well, here's the thing. Since I haven't been able to make raids lately due to scheduling, I've spent a good deal of time in BGs and Wintergrasp. As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I made my secondary spec Arms since I just didn't see myself using Fury at any point in the near future.

The problem is, my PvP gear needs some work.

How do you get better PvP gear? You PvP.

So, I've been collecting honor, Stone Keeper's Shards, etc and picking up PvP pieces. Once I get a respectable set, I'll feel comfortable walking into a battleground as an Arms Warrior.

Until then, since the vast majority of my gear is designed for a Protection Warrior, I've been PvPing as a Protection Warrior. I swap out my stam trinket for one with a bit of resilience on it to make up for the fact that PvE gear has none, and I boldly walk into battles ready to sword and board my way to the middle of the damage meters.

My observations:

A lot of people will categorize a tank in a BG as a flag carrier or somebody who is only useful when you need to tank the bosses in AV. While we are certainly well qualified for either, they are, by no means, the only roles we can fill.

As a Prot Warrior, your strengths are exceptionally useful on the battlefield. You're built to be hard to kill, and, whether it's a PvE mob or another player trying to kill you, you are still hard to kill. This, in and of itself, is an advantage in a battleground. If a group of opponents decide they want to take you out, it takes time. That time allows your teammates to do something without having to worry about the group that thinks you'll be an easy HK.

There have been several times when a group of 5 or so Horde have decided to use me as a punching bag in a Warsong somewhere in the midfield. That's 5 less Horde that my flag carrier or flag defenders have to worry about. If I can keep them occupied, it gives my team a temporary power play of which, hopefully, they will take advantage. I don't care about ultimately dying, but if I can stay alive as long as possible I'm helping my team.

The Protection talent Warbringer is so good as a PvP talent that I'm afraid to write about it because Blizzard may nerf it. You can Charge in any stance and in combat. That makes you a terror for an opposing flag carrier. Charge them, tangle them up a bit, and then if they get range on you Charge them again. Don't forget about those pesky trapping Hunters and blinking Mages.

As a Prot Warrior you've been blessed with an amazing collection of abilities that can stun, interrupt, and silence. If you're reading this post as a Prot Warrior, I won't have to list them because you should already know what you have in your arsenal. Just remember that Heroic Throw silences if you spec into Gag Order and Revenge has a chance to stun if you spec into Improved Revenge.

That Heroic Throw silence is golden (cwutididthar?) when you're fighting someone in melee range only to realize that (a) some caster is pummeling you from a distance or (b) there's a nearby healer. Just target the pest, Heroic Throw, and shut them up for a few seconds.

Your stuns can be amazing when you're carrying a flag, too. One big piece of advice I can give you is to learn how to do a jumpshot. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's basically jumping in the air, turning in a half circle, using an ability, then turning back around before you land while never breaking stride. Hunters who are really good at kiting use this a lot and, if you know one, they can probably give you a pro tip or two.

Why learn to do a jumpshot? Imagine that you're running with the flag and you've got a couple of your opponents behind you giving you grief. Jump, turn, Shockwave, turn back around, keep running, laugh when you cap the flag. It's useful and it'll make you look cool.

And, finally, don't forget that fear isn't just for Warlocks. Intimidating Shout can really come in handy.

Case in point:

Last week we had a Pally running the flag. Behind the Pally was a group of Horde. I was a little ways behind the Horde and we were all in our tunnel. I picked a Hordie in the center of the group, targeted him, Charged, and cast Intimidating Shout. They were running around feared while our Pally capped the flag and ended the game.

In closing, you probably won't be topping damage meters. You won't necessarily be leading the BG in kills or killing blows. What you can do, however, is far more important than those things, and that's making a difference in the battleground and helping your team win. As a Protection Warrior, you are well-equipped to do just that.

Advice for the Next Generation

Gather 'round, kids.

Have a seat on Uncle Mis's lap and let him give you some advice.

When you finally hit your 80th season and decide to start running those heroic dungeons or raids to get all that fancy gear you've seen folks in Stormwind walking around in, here's a couple of things you should know. Now, they may seem pretty obvious, but there are plenty of folks out there who didn't have an old battle-worn tank to tell them about it, or they just didn't pay attention.

I know you've learned plenty from others of your class, and I know they've been giving you good advice about how to do the most sustained damage you can. If you wanna get on your tank's good side, though, and stay alive long enough to finish the fight, listen closely:

Be Patient

You're gonna be in situations where a tank is gonna pick a fight with a bunch of big scary bad guys, and your first instinct after fighting through 80 seasons is going to be to jump in and start laying into them.

Just hold off a second.

Your tank has a couple of things he needs to do first. If it's me, I'm going to start by hitting one of them, likely a caster, with a Heroic Throw. That'll silence the caster and get them to run at me so I don't have to do anything fancy to invite them over for a tea party.

Once they get close enough, I'll Thunderclap to let 'em know I mean business, yell at them to make them feel bad about themselves, then pop off a quick Shockwave to make them forget who they are and why they were running at me in the first place.

After that, jump right in the fight. Hit 'em hard and often.

If you get a little fidgety and start doing your thing before I've gone through that little song and dance routine, there's a good chance that they'll decide you'd be a more enjoyable target and start beating the living nether out of you.

Stand Behind Them

Now I know you've spent a very long time standing toe to toe with those big, mean, scary people....or things....or whatever, but from here on in, that's gonna be my job. That means it's time for you to get to know their heels for a change.

The first reason it's a good idea to stand behind them is because these guys'll parry attacks from anybody standing in front of them. If they parry one of your attacks is just going to make their next attack come quicker. Since I've hopefully done a sufficient job insulting their mothers and they're looking to pummel me first and foremost, those quicker attacks are gonna land on Uncle Mis's pretty face. You don't want that, do you?

Secondly, some bad guys have a tendency to cleave or do something else that may affect any number of people standing in front of them. If you're behind them, you'll be safe from getting hurt by something like that.

Oh, and let's not forget about dragons. 99.9% of the time dragons are gonna breathe fire or something else that's pretty painful...that's kind of their thing. A dragon that doesn't breathe fire is pretty much just an over-sized lizard. Standing in front of dragons is very, very bad. Here's the kicker, though: dragons also have really big tails they like to swing around, so don't stand behind them, either.

When fighting a dragon, then, stand to the side. All of their vital organs are there for you to poke at and you're pretty much safe from getting fried or frozen or knocked into next week.

And there you have it. Next time you run off into a heroic or a raid keep these things in mind. It'll make your tank very happy and keep the healers from having to waste a bunch of their mana resurrecting you while muttering under their breath.

Run along now, kids. Aunt Cheesi made cookies.

Misanthropy

Despite my religious, Southern Baptist belief system one of my greatest struggles is my tendency to assume the worst in people. I find that it's much easier to go into a given situation believing that someone is a jerk until I'm proven wrong. It just feels safer to me to make that assumption and be pleasantly surprised than think that everybody's a good person and be consistently defecated on.

As a result of this mindset, the very aspect of World of Warcraft that I enjoy, the social aspect and playing with my friends, is often the thing that makes me want to log off and do something else.

Last night, I was invited into a 25-man Vault PUG. In the event that I haven't made it clear enough in previous posts, let me restate that I hate PUGs.

I should have known better. I'm nowhere geared enough to tank a 25-man anything. As a result, the subsequent asshattery is partially my fault. However, I believe that a quick whisper from the raid leader telling me that they'd rather have another tank would have prevented this symphony of monkey crap from reaching a crescendo.

I zoned in to a half-wipe. This should have been a red flag. Someone grabbed a trash mob before hardly anyone was in the instance and we just managed to drop him before he killed us all. Rez, rebuff, start handing out assignments.

The wisest of us (not me, unfortunately) took this as an omen and started to leave. The main tank was one of those justifiable deserters. And so it begins:

Asshat: Please tell me Misneach isn't going to tank. I'll pull aggro off of him.

I shake it off. Let's get moving. We fill spots and a new main tank arrives. Cool, now I can fade into the background as an offtank and not get singled out as a mentally ill n00b by the 19 year-old virgin who thinks purple gear makes him a success at life.

One more trash pull:

Asshat: If the tanks can't keep aggro I can't dps. I had to feign and shadowmeld and I still pulled aggro.

OK, big guy. That's plenty. Can we just kill the boss please?

Main tank is assigned to the adds, I'm assigned to the boss. Very simple job on my part. Grab the big guy and hold on.

Asshat: Mis can't be the boss tank. He'll die.
Main Tank: Well, he can't AoE tank the adds.

Well guys, thanks for making assumptions about my ability and talking about me like I'm not here.

Boss attempt #1. Adds don't die fast enough. We wipe.

Asshat: Seriously, if the tank has blues we can't dps fast enough to kill the adds.

Funny, I wasn't tanking the adds. Generating enough threat to allow the DPS to burn the adds wasn't my responsibility. But hey, if 19 year-old virgin thinks it's my fault, he must be right.

Boss attempt #2. Healers don't know their assignments. I die quickly. The raid leader singles out the healers and tells them that they didn't pay attention to the assignments.

Asshat: Doesn't matter. If Mis is tanking the boss he's gonna die again next time.

That's it. I work a 9-5 job at a well-known corporation in a leadership position on my team. I spent the day doing a ton of my own work as well as helping others on my team, both my subordinates and superiors, get their jobs done because I'm a specialist and they need my input to complete projects from time to time. I go home at night to help my wife raise 4 kids, one with a disability, and a niece who's currently living with us. I also work a part-time job on the weekends.

I log onto the game to have fun. I like the vast majority of the people in our guild. They're fun to play with, chat with, etc. I don't have the patience, however, to deal with the jerkoff population that roams around Azeroth talking to people like they're second class citizens.

For those of you who think it's OK to treat people like that, grow up and show some respect. If anyone in the raid didn't think I was capable of running the instance, tell me, I can take it. Shoot me a whisper and say it. Don't blame every mistake that someone else in the raid made on me because I happen to be the guy who's still sporting a couple of blues. Treat me with respect and I'll walk away thinking that you're a pretty decent person, even if you're offering criticism.

If you're incapable of doing that, DIAF.

/rant over

Dr. FailTank

Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Say You Suck.

This past weekend I was having a conversation with another tank from our guild. His Mage alt was in two separate groups that completely fell apart mid-run, both times due to the ineptitude of the respective tank. That conversation inspired this post.

Tanks have a lot on their plate during a run - situational awareness, status of cooldowns, proper pulling, etc - but you can boil the general job description of a tank down into three interrelated goals:

1. Stay Alive
2. Protect Your Healers
3. Generate Threat

Accomplishing these goals leads to success. It's that simple. You can break each bullet down further and get to the minutiae, but, in general, this is what a tank absolutely needs to do.

So, what are the "FailTanks" missing?

Goal #1: Stay Alive

Don't sing the BeeGees song. Seriously. Don't.

Gearing yourself is the first step in accomplishing this goal. Most people know what tank gear looks like and how they should gear their tank. Whether you follow the Mitigation philosophy, the Avoidance philosophy, or some combination of the two is up to you, but tank gear is generally obviously tank gear. If the tank in your run isn't wearing "proper" tank gear, they are beyond anyone's help and I apologize.

The other step is learning what your cooldowns do. Tanks have emergency cooldowns to blow and they should learn what they are and when to use them. This is a little bit trickier and subject to interpretation, but I can't imagine even the n00biest n00b Warrior not understanding what Last Stand and Shield Wall are. Again, if they don't, they are beyond help. Tell them it's time to reroll.

Goal #2: Protect Your Healers

I believe most tanks understand this one as well. It directly impacts #1 (Dead Healer = Dead Tank).

If your tank is working with one target breathing in that target's general direction is usually enough to keep that target off of the healers. Really. It doesn't take much.

If more than one target is involved and/or there are adds in the fight, a tank needs to understand that healers draw "global" aggro: meaning that every heal puts them on every mobs' radar. Adds will generally go straight for the healer for this very reason, but, again, it doesn't take a lot for the tank to get their attention.

Goal #3: Generate Threat

Ahh, the mystical concept of "Threat." What causes threat? Damage, heals, buffs, and debuffs all to various degrees. There are also modifiers (i.e. higher threat generated when in Defensive Stance) and certain abilities have innate, or built-in, threat.

Here, in my opinion, is what puts the "Fail" into FailTank.

I've encountered more people than I care to think about who have not understood how to generate threat as a tank. Their gear is usually fine...they know the benchmarks and thresholds and gear themselves to achieve them. They know that the healer must be protected and are more than willing to pull anything off of a healer at any point in the fight. Their deficiency, then, is the inability to generate threat because they don't understand either the concept itself or how to maximize their threat with the abilities that are at their disposal.

Tanks have abilities that, as it often says in the tooltip, "generate a high amount of threat." That means they have innate threat, or, threat that is generated simply because you used that ability. Take the amount of the innate threat, add the amount of damage done, and factor in any multipliers to figure out how much threat that particular ability generates in total. Threat is more than simply the damage done, and a good rotation will recognize that.

Good threat generation allows DPS to do their job while holding back as little as possible. If DPSers can't do their thing, the fight takes longer. If the fight takes longer, the healers mana pool may start to run short. See #1.

How do you maximize threat? Go find someone who's posted a rotation/priority list of abilities that can get you started. Do a little homework, that's all. Use the blogs in my blogroll as a starting point if you need to, but figure out how to generate as much threat per second as possible so your DPSers have room to work.

The bottom line is, people who think that wearing some plate and having a large amount of health makes them a good tank are exceptionally mistaken, and the tank is too important of a role in a group to allow for that level of ignorance.

Career tanks are generally not the problem (note I said generally). Usually it's the person who rolled a tank as an alt (I'm looking at you, Death Knights) and hasn't taken the time to understand their new class as well as they understood their main. When the lack of understanding starts hurting others, though, if becomes unacceptable.

Don't be a FailTank! Do your homework. Learn what you should/shouldn't be doing. Study tanking in general and tanking as a (insert your class here) specifically.

Trust me, your group will thank you.

Weekend Shenanigans

I ran Heroic Culling of Stratholme for the first time on Friday. Overall, it went well and we just had a couple of hiccups. The bosses were not anything to write home about, but the trash was really obnoxious. Oddly enough, it wasn't the elite trash that was the problem, but the non-elites that roam about and pick away at party members while they're trying to cast. Everything that dropped was cloth caster gear aside from some Pally shoulders. Willy, who is finally back, got some upgrades and the ring that dropped went to the Shaman we Pugged. It was well-deserved, as he did a great job and helped us melt the bosses down ridiculously fast.

I only did one dungeon while I was leveling to 80, so I'm seeing most of the WotLK dungeons for the first time on Heroic...something of a trial by fire. During the run on Friday, I was very pleased with my single-target threat generation. I did a little Recount analysis afterwards and decided I'm still not using Revenge enough. I'm getting much better with Heroic Strike spams, though, thanks to some reshuffling of my action bars. The Revenge issue should be easy to fix now that I'm aware of the problem.

Elsewhere, I finally became a Champion of Gnomeregan. I was going to take Darraxus's advice and avoid turning in the seals until I was exalted, but I was close enough and ran off to knock out some really low-level dwarf/gnome quests which got me exalted with Ironforge and within 2K of Gnomer. Nice break from the daily grind. Exodar's next.

Cheesi also played a lot this weekend and made it to 76. She's doing a good job knocking the rust off and getting back into the swing of the whole stabbity-stab Rogue thing. It's more fun for me when she's online, too. I'm looking forward to running some heroics/raids with her.

My Aggro Addiction

I named this blog Aggro Junkie after trying several names that were already taken. I don't regret my final decision, because it really sums up the way I feel about playing a Warrior, specifically a Prot Warrior.

I leveled Arms. In my low-60s my brother-in-law/GM recommended that I go Prot so that we could run the Outland instances with a real tank, rather than a Fury Warrior with a shield. Muttering under my breath, I respecced.

I haven't gone back.

There's just something about tanking that keeps me coming back for more. Even when I complain about "tank burnout" it's only temporary. If I walked into a raid to dps, I just don't think I'd enjoy it as much.

I am my team's shield. I'm the one thing standing between them and something big with bad intentions. When the boss has me targeted I feel like I'm in control. I'm begging him to hit me with everything he's got.

When a tank is, borrowing a musical term, "in the pocket" there's really nothing that compares to it. The rotation's solid - an ability for each cooldown with Heroic Strikes in between. I've been in fights where it's pure Zen. It's cruise control. No thinking required. Thinking would probably wreck it. Reaction isn't necessary because you're anticipating. You've got the boss and he's not going anywhere.

When the fight's over and the loot's getting passed around, there's a moment of quiet triumph. At no time did the boss consider running after the Warlock that's been pounding him with Shadow Bolts. He never thought about turning around and taking a swing at the Rogue who's been punching holes in his back. He ignored the Mage who's been lighting him on fire and coating him with ice. All he saw was the plate-wearing monster standing directly in front of him, matching him blow for blow and asking for more.

That's why I'm still a tank.

That's why I'm an aggro junkie.

A Favorite Thing I Forgot

A few posts ago, I discussed some of my favorite abilities and glyphs with which Warrior tanks have been graced since 3.0/WotLK. One very important ability that I forgot is Heroic Throw.

Why does it rock so hard?

1. It costs no rage.
2. With Gag Order, it silences the mob, making it great for pulling casters.
3. It has a maximum distance but not a minimum distance, meaning that if all of your other stuns/interrupts are on cooldown, you can use it right in the mob's face.
4. It has innate threat, meaning that the overall threat generated by the ability is more than simply the damage the ability causes.
5. It's instant, which means it's quicker than pulling with a gun and you can do it while moving.
6. Less gun use equals less money spent on ammo.
7. If you're running a Deep Wounds spec a Heroic Throw crit will trigger the DoT.

Heroic Throw, I apologize for neglecting you earlier.

Hug?

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

Yes, I know this is my third post today. I'm just feeling a little chatty and none of my coworkers play WoW. Don't judge me.

Here's a small and certainly incomplete list of some of the new things that make me love tanking since WotLK dropped (in no particular order):

• Warbringer - Charge in any stance and in combat? That makes me inappropriately excited.
• Shockwave - We begged and pleaded for something better than Thunderclap and TPTB yielded. When used in conjunction with T-Clap (which now doesn't have a limit on the number of mobs affected) it's even sexier.
• Sword and Board - Reset my Shield Slam cooldown and make it free? Seriously? I'll take it.
• Glyph of Revenge - A free Heroic Strike every time I use Revenge? That + Sword and Board = Christmas.
• Enraged Regeneration - A HoT that doesn't require me to re-roll Draenei? Sure it's not as potent as a real heal from a real healer, but it certainly doesn't suck in a pinch.

The list goes on, but, bottom line, it certainly is a great time to be a tank.

No Naxx for Mis

This past weekend I had to bow out of our guild's Naxxramas run.

/sigh

Saturday I had to make an epic five hour journey to reacquire the kids, then make the five hour journey back. I got home before invites went out, but there was just enough chaos in the house that there was no chance I could be a productive member of the team.

Sunday night they were going to go back in, but again I was unable to attend for similar reasons (house full of kids, splitting migraine from living in a house full of kids, etc). It's really starting to get frustrating.

I don't like to go off on "the way things used to be" tangents, but in the BC days I was the guild's main tank and raid leader. I spent so much time in Kara I had a tab running with a couple of the concubines. For a period of about six or seven months, I was in there every week taking as many guildies as I could and helping them get geared.

Now, thanks to my hiatus, I've lost my MT spot and I'm barely geared to run heroic anything. I can't seem to find the time to do much to improve that, either.

Probably the most frustrating thing is people (in my own guild, no less) saying things like, "you'll grow into your role eventually" or "you'll learn how to tank if you do it more." How quickly we are forgotten.

Anyway, if you've made it this far thanks for letting me vent. I didn't intend this to be a "feel sorry for me" post. Just a little something that I had to get off of my chest.

/rant over